Medals and More at National Schools Regatta – Friday

At the National Schools Regatta, two days of calm sunny weather meant fair racing and a pleasant environment for athletes and spectators alike.
On Friday, GMS had three crews racing; Year 9 Girls’ Quad, Year 9 Boys’ Octo and the Year 10 Girls’ Quad.
The Year 9 Girls’ Quad was in the first time-trial (TT) of the day. The time-trial leads to a ranked final (A, B, C) based on times from the TT. The girls had a solid row but were not quite on top form and the lack of water time this season took its toll. Frustratingly for them, they missed out on the finals by one place. It was still a good achievement as the fastest non-qualifier, with half the crews not making it past the time trial.
The boys struggled due to a lack of water time but had seen some promising outings in the weeks leading to the regatta. Rowing down to the start they were looking well coordinated and a much stronger crew from a few weeks earlier. They had a great row and looked aggressive and racy the whole way. They were placed 5th in the time trial qualifying them for the A (medal) final, alongside Hampton, St Paul’s, Radley, and Westminster. Three of these major Independent Schools row on the tideway, which has had far less lost water time and Radley has a rather smart indoor rowing tank, which we have hired a couple of times this winter for the crews to get some water training. There was an 8 second spread between 1st and 6th in the time trial or about 2.5 lengths, which promised some tight racing in the final.

Our boys took off well and had a tremendous start and by 250m the race looked like Hampton and St Pauls’ were going to battle for Gold/Silver and Radley and Great Marlow were going to have a good tussle for Bronze. Sadly, as they approached halfway our 7th man caught a crab and lost his blade. This was a boat stopper and ended their race. While hugely frustrating for this young crew, they had shown themselves to be right up there with the best and prepared to take them on.

For the Year 10, racing is over 2000m so these races happened later in the day.

Our Girls’ Quad had been feeling the pressure throughout the week as friends, teachers and family wished them luck, placing high expectations on them for Gold. In the time trial they had a poor start and took a while to settle and when the results came out, they were second behind Marlow. The previous time these crews met at JSR, Marlow had flown off the start and opened up a good lead of over a length before the GMS crew pulled them back in and went on to win. From a race plan, GMS did not want to have so much to do in the second half this time. In the final, the girls got out of the blocks well and the two crews were pretty close with Marlow just in front, but Headington School had ambitions of their own and led both by half a length at 500m. Over the next 500m, GMS and Marlow stayed at a similar pace but had eaten into the Headington lead. By halfway the order was Marlow, Headington, GMS. On the bank, the coaches were reasonably happy because the GMS girls had always proved very strong over the third quarter of the race: the plan looked good. However, Marlow had learnt from their last brush with the GMS girls and paced themselves better. They rose to the challenge and matched GMS stroke for stroke throughout the next 500m. Coming into the last 500m, Marlow’s lead over GMS was 0.3 seconds, down from 0.8 seconds at halfway. Coaches were still confident, backing the GMS girls to have the stronger finish and they did start to push, but with each push the Marlow crew responded and while the inches were getting slowly eroded GMS was running out of track. With 150m of the race left the crews were level. Then Lucy Platt, at stroke, found what it needed and raised the rate to over 40 strokes a minute, the crew made that final dash and GMS Girls’ Quad won the Leslie Langton Cup by 1 second.

A fantastic finish to a fantastic race.